A nearby shriek in a familiar voice has me focusing on Grace with laser-like precision. And grinning like a fool as she tries desperately to wipe away a face full of snow. At least until Flint reaches over and helps her clear out her scarf, his hands suddenly way too close to the petal-soft skin of her cheeks. The same skin I’ve been dreaming about touching ever since she cupped my jaw with her hand.

And when she looks up at him with a laugh and a toss of her curls—hot-pink hat definitely included—a low growl that I have no control over emanates from my throat. Even before Flint hands her that fucking dragon hat and helps her fill it with snowballs.

The growl only gets worse when he actually puts his hands on her, picking her up and tossing her over his shoulder like she belongs there. And when he wraps an arm around her upper thighs to hold her in place, I swear I can feel his jugular beneath my fangs.

If he drops her, if he harms so much as one hair on her head, I’m going to fucking kill him. And if he doesn’t…I just might kill him anyway. Especially if he doesn’t get his hands off her in the next five seconds.

Relief shimmers through me as he deposits Grace safely on one of the lower branches, and I take my first real breath in what feels like hours.

Then I settle back to enjoy the show as Grace pelts everyone who walks by with snowball after snowball. She’s got remarkably good form for someone who’s never had a snowball fight before.

At least until a brisk wind comes up out of nowhere. Grace falters a little, and my stomach bottoms out as she grabs on to the tree trunk for support. And by the time another gust shakes the tree even harder, I’m already moving—sliding down my own tree even as I scan the surrounding area to see if the wind is natural or creature-made.

The rest of the Order is right behind me.

I’m down the tree and halfway to Grace—and about to call the wind natural despite the bizarre coincidence—when I spot Bayu several yards away. The dragon is still in human form, but he’s facing Grace’s tree with his mouth wide open. Everything between him and Grace—snow, trees, people—is buffeted with a powerful wind.

Fury sweeps through me. With a slice of my hand and a flash of my telekinetic power, I lift him several feet off the ground and send him hurtling into the nearest tree trunk.

He hits hard enough to knock himself out, and that’s all I care about. There’s a part of me that wants to stop and drain him dry for even thinking about threatening Grace, but right now I have bigger things to worry about. Namely the fact that while the wind dragon is currently incapacitated, the last of the breeze he released definitely isn’t. And it’s headed straight for my mate.

I take off running toward Grace, but, fast as I am, I’m too late. The wind has been buffeting the tree, and her, for too long. I can hear the branch she’s on crack from here. And Flint, the fucker, is doing absolutely nothing to help her.

A million thoughts run through my head in an instant. Pulling Grace off that branch and floating her safely down to the ground. Wrapping a telekinetic hand around Flint’s traitorous throat and squeezing until his fucking eyes pop out. Holding the tree branch in place until I can get there and catch her.

But as the branch gives another ominous crack, I go with the most expeditious—and easily explainable to someone who doesn’t know about vampires or dragons—solution and yank Flint out of the tree just as Grace starts to fall.

He’s a big guy—dragons usually are—and turns out, he makes a really good landing spot to break her fall.

Of course, Flint knows it’s me who yanked him out of the tree—knowledge that I am more than okay with him having. The second he hits the ground, he’s lifting his head, looking around to try to spot me. But if dealing with Hudson taught me anything, it’s the value of guerrilla warfare. Never let them see you until they’re already dead.

Today is no exception as I indulge a particularly satisfying fantasy of ripping Flint’s fucking head from his fucking traitorous body. And that’s before my mate tries to scramble off him and only ends up straddling him instead, her knees on either side of his hips.

As she tries to make sure he’s okay after he just participated in an attempt on her life.

The irony is fucking painful, especially when the jackass reassures her he’s fine. And puts his hands on her hips in a gesture that makes every cell in my body yearn for destruction. It’s a feeling that doesn’t go away, even after Grace scrambles off him and starts alternating between yelling at him and thanking him for jumping out of the tree to save her.

And when she steps forward, looking like she wants to check out up close and personally if he’s really okay, I give up any attempt at staying cool.

Screw decorum. Screw the art of surprise. Screw everything. No way is my mate putting her hands—or any other part of her body—on that jackass one more time, at least not while she’s ignorant of Flint’s part in her taking a header out of that tree.

I fade through the space between us, roughly the size of three football fields, in a flash. There are people milling around Grace and Flint, but the second they realize I’m here, they back the fuck up. Fast.

And then I’m there, staring down at this girl whose mere existence has changed everything, and wishing desperately that I had met her a year ago, before everything in my life and the world around us went to total and complete shit.

The yearning is so powerful that for a second, I’m barely aware of Flint.

Or my friends, who have suddenly lined up behind me in a very obvious show of solidarity.

Or the crowd, who’s watching every second of the drama with greedy eyes. All I can see or hear or think about is Grace.

But then Flint moves, whether in an attempt to apologize or tell me off, I don’t know. And I don’t care. He got Grace up that tree deliberately so Bayu could knock her out of it, and if he thinks I’m just going to let him get away with that, then his grasp of reality is in serious jeopardy right now.

Actions have consequences, and murder attempts mean there will be hell to pay. Even if I don’t yet know what kind of hell it’s going to be. I do know, however, that he’s going to give me some kind of answer about this debacle before we leave. Or I’ll tear him limb from fucking limb right here, right now.

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” I demand when he finally has the nerve to look me in the eye.

Flint doesn’t answer me right away—the coward—and I start to ask again, more forcefully this time. Except Grace steps between us before I can and whispers, “I fell, Jaxon. Flint saved me.”

It’s like setting a rocket off inside me. Finally hearing my name on her lips feels damn good, but listening to her defend Flint is about to make my head explode. “Did he?” I ask, reverting to sarcasm in an attempt not to tear Flint apart.